Elements of the Short Story

1. Elements of the Short Story Part II From AHS AP Literature and Composition

2. TONE: The Expression of Attitude in Fiction Tone: • Methods by which writers and speakers reveal attitudes or feeling to create meaning • Tone refers not so much to attitude itself BUT instead to those techniques and modes of presentation that reveal or create the attitude

3. Tone con’t. Tone and Attitudes • Author’s attitude toward the material / character’s attitude toward the material or subject • Author’s attitude toward the readers • Other dominant attitudes of the author or characters Tone and Humour A major aspect of tone is humour. Everyone likes to laugh, and shared laughter is part of good human relationships. But not everyone can explain why things are funny. Laughter resists close analysis; it is unplanned, personal, idiosyncratic, and usually unpredictable. Some common elements: • An object to laugh at • Incongruity – anything contrary to what is expected • Safety and/or good will (i.e. seeing a person slip on a banana peel and hurtle through the air; getting hit in the face with a pie) • Unfamiliarity, newness, uniqueness, and spontaneity – the task of the comic writer is to develop ordinary materials to that point when spontaneity frees readers to laugh

4. Tone con’t. Tone and Irony: The capacity to have more than one attitude toward someone or something is a uniquely human trait. We know that people are not perfect, but we love a number of them anyway. Therefore we speak to them not only with love and praise, but also with banter and criticism. On occasion, you may have given mildly insulting greeting cards to your loved ones, not to affront them but to amuse them. You share smiles and laughs, and at the same time you remind them of your affection. The word “irony” describes such contradictory statements or situations. Irony is natural to human beings, who are aware of life’s ambiguities and complexities. • Verbal irony • Understatement • Overstatement or hyperbole • Double entendre • Situational irony • Cosmic irony or irony of fate • Dramatic irony

5. Theme Definitions of Theme • The theme of a literary work is a message or value or insight about life or human nature that the writer wishes to communicate • A theme is an idea or message communicated by a work of literature; it is a perception about life or human nature that the writer chooses to share with the reader • Some themes are stated directly, and some are implied; but every theme is a expression of the significance of the story being told • Certain works of literature contain more than one theme • Theme is NOT the subject of the story; theme is NOT what the work is about • A theme is NOT the action that happens in a story • A theme is NOT a situation a character is in or event in the story • Discover the theme of a literary work by what happens to the central characters; the importance of those events, stated in terms that apply to all human beings, is the theme • Discover the theme by 1. the characters’ actions and reactions and 2. the dialogue in the story

6. STYLE Style is the way authors assemble their words to tell the story (or develop the argument as in a an essay) or compose a poem. Style consists of many elements. These include the choice of words, the sentence structure, and literary devices. THE WORDS THAT TELL THE STORY • The way writers assemble words to tell the story. It is the choice of words in the service of content • Narrative and descriptive passages may use a different style than dialogue does • The more appropriately the words fit the situation, the better the style

7. Style con’t. Diction: Choice of Words Should be accurate and explicit, so that all actions, scenes, and ideas are clear e.g. • A passage describing action should emphasise active verbs • A description of a place should contain nouns and adjectives that evoke locations, relationships, colours, and shapes • An explanatory or reflective passage should include words that convey thoughts, states of mind and emotion • FORMAL OR HIGH DICTION: standard and ‘elegant words • NEUTRAL OR MIDDLE DICTION: ordinary, everyday standard vocabulary, shunning longer words but using contractions when necessary • INFORMAL OR LOW DICTION: ranges from colloquial speech to the level of substandard or slang expressions; appropriate for some narrative dialogue, natural choice for stories in 1st person • SPECIFIC LANGUAGE: words that bring to mind images from the real world • GENERAL LANGUAGE: refers to broad classes i.e. cars instead of Hondas; fruit instead of apples • CONCRETE WORDS: refers to qualities or conditions of immediate perception; used for more specific descriptions such as a person, a place, or a thing e.g. Ice cream is cold. • ABSTRACT WORDS: refers to qualities or conditions that are broader, less palpable; used for description of things like emotions, thoughts, mental states of character etc. e.g. words like ‘bad,’ ‘fine,’ ‘excellent,’ etc. • DENOTATION: what a word means (dictionary definition) • CONNOTATION: what a word suggests (words may have pretty much the same dictionary definition (denotation) but each one has an underlying or cultural meaning – that’s its connotation e.g. • Friendly, warm, polite, cordial • Skinny, gaunt, skeletal • Fit, trim, svelte, slim, slender

8. STYLE con’t. Other Forms of Style: • Rhetoric: the art of persuasive writing • Counting / Word Numbers: counting various elements is a quick and easy way to begin the study of style (some authors use more of one type of word than another; some use longer words than others etc.) • The number of verbs, adjectives, prepositions, and adverbs in a passage • The number of syllables in relation to the total number of words • Sentence Types: different authors use different types of sentences; this contributes to their style of writing • Simple Sentences – contain one subject and one verb (short and appropriate for actions and declarations • Compound Sentences – contain two simple sentences joined together with a coordinating conjunction, semicolon, or conjunctive adverb • Complex Sentences – contain a main clause and a subordinate clause; describes cause and effect relationships and also analysis and reflection • Compound / Complex Sentences – contain two main clauses and a subordinate clause

9. STYLE con’t. • Parallelism: the repetition of the same grammatical form (nouns, verbs, phrases, clauses) to balance expressions, conserve words, and build climaxes • Fragments and Run-ons: although these are grammatically incorrect, writers of fiction occasionally use them for certain purposes, such as emphasis or part of colloquialism • Repetition: similar to parallelism but usually refers to repetition of individual words versus repetition of phrases and larger portions of sentences for parallelism • Sentence Length: writers use of a variety of sentence lengths to achieve their purpose. Some authors are known for their extremely long sentences; some are known for their short sentences.

10. Style con’t. Sentence Length Short Sentences: • Indicates action • Perhaps used with younger characters • Might indicate quickness, fear, desperation, or excitement Longer Sentences: • Typically used in stream of consciousness-type writing • Typically used for thoughts versus narration or dialogue Fragments: • Used for emphasis • Used sometimes to make a humourous point • Used sometimes to show tone (author’s attitude) such as irony or sarcasm • Sometimes used in dialogue Run-ons: • Sometimes used to show constant action • Sometimes used for a character’s thoughts – that’s how we think • Sometimes used in dialogue – we do sometimes talk that way; perhaps out of fear, desperation, or excitement